Monday, June 20, 2011

Upcycled Toddler Tees and Matching Shorts

There's no doubt about it.... I am certainly in the nesting phase of this pregnancy. I have been sewing and getting ready like there's no tomorrow these past few days. We even steam cleaned my mother-in-law's carpets the other day because 1)it was her birthday and she wanted them done, and 2) I want Jonas to be able to roll around on clean carpet when he gets here :)

A week or so ago my sewing machine focus was on finishing Joel's upcycled tee and short sets. I made them about a year ago, however after I made them I realized that they were way too big for him at the time. Of course, this time when I got them out of the closet, several of them were a little too short. I fixed this by letting out the hem and then adding coordinating t-shirt scraps around the sleeves and the bottom to create a faux layered look. I decided against sewing in the faux layers and instead opted to use some fusible hem tape. I love how it turned out. This one will be his Independence Day outfit :) Please excuse the slight wonkiness on the front. The hem tape came loose a little... I'll fix that later on today.

By the way, there are matching shorts for all of these tees, however most of the time, he wasn't wearing the matching shorts when I took the pictures. (We've been using the shorts as PJs bottoms since they're so comfy!)

The next two fit well just the way they are, so I didn't add anything around the hems. This one was the perfect shirt for Father's Day!

And this one is my personal fav :)

For this shirt, as well as all the others, I was able to use the necklines and the sleeve hems of the existing shirts to cut down on the amount of time it takes to make the shirt, as well as to make the finish product look more professional. (I'm not very good at sewing in straight lines!) All of the bottom hems are sewn by me though, which was a bit of a problem when it came to this shirt. The bottom obviously needed white too since all the other openings were white. Since I had no ribbed fabric on hand and I'm too cheap to buy some, I used white t-shirt scraps to make a bias tape and sewed it on. It doesn't match since it's not ribbed, but I guess it's not too noticeable.

{cute little boy sweeping with his newly thrifted vacuum cleaner}

For the tank top, I made double sided bias tape from t-shirt scraps and sewed it around the openings. For the coordinating shorts, I once again did the layered look by adding in some black t-shirt scraps. For all the faux layers, I was able to utilize the existing hems in the t-shirts. Score!

And because I had used up all the thrifted tees in my stash, you know I had to run right out and thrift some more!

The only problem is, I really don't like weekend thrifting. By the time the weekend rolls around, the 50%/75% colored tags are pretty much picked over, since the colors change on Mondays. Nonetheless, I had the itch to go thrifting on Friday, and so off I went. Not to mention, Father's Day was just around the corner, and I was hoping to find my hubby something special. That didn't happen, since I never find anything that I'm actually looking for... thrifting is all about stumbling upon things you didn't know you needed :) I did find a pair of vintage binoculars that I thought would make a cool gift, however they smelled pretty funky, so I passed. I've been wanting to get the hubs some binoculars ever since we moved into this new house. Our backyard looks out onto a bird sanctuary!

Anyway, all the adult tees I bought were 99c with the exception of the first one, which was $1.99.

I put Ketchup on my Ketchup ... I saw the kiddo version of this shirt while we were on vacation. We almost got it for Joel but didn't because of the high price tag. Joel really does eat ketchup on anything. He even dips tomatoes in ketchup. (And I'm not even kidding). Does that make me a bad parent?

I Rock. Need I say more since there's a baby on the way?

Peeps in the Hood ... perfect for an after-church Easter shirt!

A brown skull tee for Halloween. Check out the gold teeth :) I really bought this one mainly because I need to make Joel a pair of brown PJ shorts to match his monkey PJ tops.

Chillin with my Gnomies. When Joel saw this one, he exclaimed, "Santa!"

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About Me

This small piece of cyberspace,
Is the homey little place,
Where I can blog about my life,
Being a mom and a wife.
Thrift-store shopping, crafting, sewing,
Being busy, on-the-going.
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